Travel

It could have been worse

All things considered I'm a pretty good traveler. I've racked up more than a handful of frequent flyer miles criss-crossing the globe to help deliver Open Source software to places far and wide.

Given the number of days I've spent in airports and on their companion tubes hurdling through the air a few tricks to make things easier have been picked up along the way. In addition there is plenty to know about scheduling and when to do certain things. This all brought me to the airport early Friday morning for a short flight from Boise to San Francisco for work. Arriving at the airport and flitting through security, my laptop was coming to life as soon as it touched the desk in the business center. Read more about Oh the places you'll go...

A family member recently sent a question to my wife about how to keep photos safe while traveling.

And speaking of road trips, we are heading to Hawaii and are planning on getting an iPad for entertainment along the way. We are wondering if you have used your iPad as a photo transfer station from your EyeFi card to your iPhoto at home. Does it work that way? We don't have a laptop, so we were thinking an EyeFi card would allow us to take pictures and upload them to our iPad (and ultimately our computer) for safe keeping. Or, would we be better off taking the card to the local Costco to get a cd made to make sure we have the pics safe and sound? Thank you for any insight you might be able to offer.

This is a workflow I've spent quite a bit of time on over the years. My thinking is definitely affected by two instances of losing photos I'd really like to have back.

The first instance where I lost photos was years ago on a business trip to Wichita of all places. I'd taken some photos on the plane as well as some pretty nice sunset photos. I'd reviewed them on the camera's (tiny by modern standards) screen and shared them with colleagues on the trip. When I downloaded the photos I didn't notice that the card was evidently corrupted in some way and only a portion of the photos were saved to the computer. Thinking that all was well the card was formatted and I went on shooting. Had I caught it in time I could have likely used some card recovery software and gotten back at least some of the photos. Read more about Using iPad to hold your photos while on vacation

Arriving at Boise Airport this morning I checked the board for my flight. While it wasn't listed yet something surprising was. US Airways has a flight listed on the board from Boise to Boston. How could I have missed this?

Immediately thoughts of being able to get from Boise to Boston in a matter of four or five hours sprang to mind. Gone are the stopovers and hours in the airport lounge. All with a simple change of airlines. And since both United, my frequent carrier, and US Airways are in the Star Alliance the benefits of accrued mileage and accruing more miles will all be transferrable. What good fortune. Read more about Getting there

Yesterday there was a story on the news about voice being given to the thought of pay toilets on airlines. Now we're all certainly tired of fees and some airlines, like Southwest, are taking advantage of that to advertise their lack of fees.

An exchange this morning on the flight has me thinking about how we think about the airlines.

Economy Plus

For some background you need to understand Economy Plus. United has implemented this "tween" class. It is basically economy but for a fee you get seats with extra legroom. It costs more and you get something for it. The "extra" amount isn't as much as business class or first class, but it is a higher priced ticket. Generally these sections are the front of the economy section from the exit rows forward. Read more about Stealing from the airlines

On the trip to the airport I was reflecting on just where Drupal has taken me. On one hand having chosen nearer the beginning of the decade to use this open source PHP-based content management system was a short-term decision. I had websites and they needed to be done. The solution was easily Drupal. Sure there was the roll-your-own option. But I've been there and there is little way to get around the idea that proprietary website management is for the birds.

In a literal sense Drupal has powered travels across the country. The wonderful thing about Drupal travel is the community.

Wherever you go from coast to coast and continent to continent there are fascinating people to meet. In a career sense Drupal has certainly been the right choice. Not only has it been a tool that has enabled me to do things to impress those who write my paychecks but a year ago it became my full-time job. Read more about Getting to Drupalcon

Some recent unbookings for Las Vegas meetings have Sin City tourism officials concerned. Last year's meeting revenue was off 5% before the recent spate of backlash.

Having recently traveled through McCarran airport it seems that Las Vegas tourism officials should be considering other problems as well. In short I've never been in a place so filthy. Every corner of the C-terminal that wasn't filled with a human was covered with litter. Each of the windows held a random collection of used tissues, drink cups and to-go containers decorating the sill. The rows upon rows of seats that make up each gate had similar collections of detritus under each seat.

The impression was certainly not a positive one. Imagine the business traveler arriving for the fist time for a meeting that evening. I've traveled through the airport most of my life and it was enough to make me cross it off as many trips as possible. What would somebody who had never been there think?